TY - CHAP
T1 - The Engaged Communication Scholar: Designing CIT-Informed Engaged Research in Diverse Communities
AU - Villanueva,, George
AU - Wenzel, Andrea
N1 - The Communication Ecology of 21st Century Urban Communities addresses the questions of whether it (still) matters what neighborhood individuals live in and if it is still necessary and possible for city dwellers to build and maintain place-based communities. The book's contributors address how urban communities are formed, reformed, and transformed from a communication infrastructure theory perspective.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - In 1952 Kurt Lewin wrote, “There is nothing more practical than a good theory” (as cited in Vansteenkiste & Sheldon, 2006, p. 63). According to Lewin, theorists and practitioners should be linked in a symbiotic cycle—theorists developing concepts to understand social problems, and practitioners providing grounded data to validate or rework theory. Such an ethos is relevant today with the revival of “engaged scholarship”—understood as the application of research to society’s most pressing problems (Boyer, 1996; Burawoy, 2005). “Good theory” is needed more than ever as scholars strategize how to engage with urban communities grappling with issues such as poverty, immigrant integration, and equitable urban development. Because the engagement of diverse urban communities is dependent on good communication acts, it is appropriate that engaged scholarship projects are grounded in communication theory that values the complex dynamics of local community actors and geographies.
AB - In 1952 Kurt Lewin wrote, “There is nothing more practical than a good theory” (as cited in Vansteenkiste & Sheldon, 2006, p. 63). According to Lewin, theorists and practitioners should be linked in a symbiotic cycle—theorists developing concepts to understand social problems, and practitioners providing grounded data to validate or rework theory. Such an ethos is relevant today with the revival of “engaged scholarship”—understood as the application of research to society’s most pressing problems (Boyer, 1996; Burawoy, 2005). “Good theory” is needed more than ever as scholars strategize how to engage with urban communities grappling with issues such as poverty, immigrant integration, and equitable urban development. Because the engagement of diverse urban communities is dependent on good communication acts, it is appropriate that engaged scholarship projects are grounded in communication theory that values the complex dynamics of local community actors and geographies.
UR - https://doi.org/10.3726/b13168
M3 - Chapter
BT - The Communication Ecology of 21st Century Urban Communities
ER -